Addressing the congregation at last month's thanksgiving service
for Sir Georg Solti, the Dean of Westminster, Dr Wesley Carr, spoke
of music as "the one language that transcends the limitations of
culture and learning". It is also, he might have added, the
aesthetic element that, along with great architecture, draws people
into churches, turns their hearts to God and, even to the
non-religious, sings of the spiritual hunger that lifts the human
imagination. Today at Westminster Abbey, "the note is crack'd" by
the pettiness of a dispute that should never have led the dean and
chapter to dismiss
the distinguished Dr Martin Neary as Organist and Master of the
Choristers.

The proximate cause, which Dr Carr refused to disclose during the
hearings that preceded this ill-judged decision, is the setting up
in 1997 by Dr Neary and his wife of a company, Neary Music, to
manage the choir's concert engagements, tours and recording
contracts - each of which was formally approved by the dean and
chapter. They apparently were, however, ignorant of Dr Neary's
initiative until it was noticed by the auditors. Dr Carr concedes
that any financial element in this dispute is a "question of a few
pounds"; yet he insists that the Nearys are guilty of a "breach of
trust" amounting to gross misconduct.

To suggest dishonesty in this austere president of the Royal
College of Organists is an act of exaggeration so dramatic as to
suggest a broader agenda. This affair has more to do with the power
struggle between the clerical and musical sides of great cathedrals
than with the minutiae of abbey accounts. Dr Carr's record in church
politics is that of a zealous but abrasive moderniser determined to
establish his executive authority; and in these hermetic
hierarchies, where principles and passions collide, deans and
organists have ever been rivals.

Ecclesiastical music, always a glory of the English Church, has
undergone a popular renaissance in recent years. This has done much
for the finances of the great cathedrals - and enabled them to
recruit and retain the highest choral talent. But it has done little
for internal harmony. Organists, proud of the drawing power of great
choirs, tend to be fiercely proprietorial of their charges and their
repertoires; deans agonise, in some cases excessively, over the
secularisation and "commercialisation" of choral music.

The Organist of Westminster Abbey, inheritor of a title once held
by Henry Purcell, is unlikely to be a wilting violet. But Dr Neary
has a case that goes beyond professional pride. In this expanding
market, the management of choirs in the class of Westminster Abbey
or King's College, Cambridge, is no light workload. At the abbey,
the key decision was taken in 1994, when the dean and chapter asked
Dr Neary and his wife to assume full responsibility for all the
choir's external engagements, including the signing of contracts.
Mrs Neary subtracted modest "fixing fees" from the revenue. Partly
to limit the Nearys' legal liability, their accountants advised him
to create a limited company. Dr Neary should perhaps have told the
dean, but deliberate deception seems improbable. If the dean and
chapter were unhappy, they could surely have found some amicable way
to restore Abbey control.

Dr Carr's methods of proceeding could hardly have been more
high-handed. After a decade of highly praised service, Dr Neary and
his wife were suspended overnight, causing the cancellation of the
abbey's justly celebrated concert for Holy Week. Declining offers of
mediation by such experienced officers of the abbey as Lord
Weatherill, the former Speaker, the dean ordered the investigation,
conducted the disciplinary hearing on Maundy Thursday, relayed the
findings to the chapter and, as primus inter pares, won their
assent to dismissal.

Dr Carr has acted within his rights. Because the abbey is a Royal
Peculiar under the direct jurisdiction of the Queen, no cleric has a
chairman's power to intervene. But he has acted neither with
Christian humility, nor in the interest of the Church's already
wretched reputation for handling disputes. The Abbey has problems
enough without this poisoning of the air. Dr Neary can appeal only
to the Queen. She is expected to refer the matter to the Chancellor,
Lord Irvine of Lairg, who may wisely see no obstacle to Dr Neary's
reinstatement. Dr Carr has raised dispute to the skies; Lord Irvine,
like St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, must endeavour to pull
an angel down.